When it came time to settle the payment, the X-Galaxy people — blue-skinned humanoid aliens all sporting mohawks — watched the footage and were utterly dumbstruck, then gazed at Esdeath with deep reverence.
As for Zod, Tifa, and Yan Lingji, in their eyes they were probably just this formidable female's underlings, the kind just tagging along.
Faced with a powerhouse who could single-handedly slaughter an entire swarm of Giant Bat Cosmo-beasts, the X-Galaxy people naturally didn't dare delay payment. Very readily, based on the count, they gave Esdeath 130 million credits.
It seemed the number of those Giant Bat Cosmo-beasts really was enormous. It was just that Zod and the others had no real concept of that.
Actually, Zod could have sold valuable things like vibranium, adamantium, and raw kryptonite. Materials are always the most valuable; only energy sources can compare.
But Zod would never sell them. Selling them would be helping others advance their materials science. Once materials science takes a slight step forward, it easily drives other scientific fields to skyrocket. As one of the two major bottlenecks restricting scientific development, probably countless civilizations across the universe are stuck on materials science. Selling them vibranium and adamantium right now would be aiding the enemy, would be turning traitor to Earth!
Zod absolutely could not sell out Earth's resources for a pittance of money.
After obtaining the 130 million credits, Zod swiped his card and bought all the knowledge and technology he wanted, then began his own learning and upgrading spree.
During this period, Esdeath and the other two went off to play on other planets. Zod wasn't worried about their safety; all three had Zod's thought waves implanted in their minds. If danger arose, Zod could simply teleport over.
"Interesting, so in the Marvel side, this formula is applied like this."
"This reaction goes in a completely opposite direction compared to the DC side."
Forgetting to eat and sleep, Zod quickly digested the vast amount of knowledge. After making it his own, he manufactured a new war machine.
A space war machine!
His own nanotech armor didn't need upgrading, since its defensive and offensive capabilities were already sufficient. What needed improvement now was the individual combat prowess of the Burning Legion.
Originally, Zod had been leaning toward things like Tekkaman armor, Guyver units, Nanosuits, or MJOLNIR armor. Gundam-type stuff didn't fit the style of the Marvel universe and would probably be easily blown up.
The new war machine Zod created, however, required human modification to keep up with the performance it granted.
Tremendous speed and strength enhancements, and its weapons were highly advanced, discarding gunpowder weapons in favor of energy weapons.
Three magnetic confinement fusion reactors in the chest supplied power, arranged in a triangular formation, providing stable energy.
The energy cannons in the palms had their output improved. Zod adjusted their frequency so that the emitted energy beams were terrifyingly powerful, enough to pierce the defenses of any armor on Earth. Even secondary kryptonite probably couldn't stop them.
Beyond that, energy shields were implemented. As long as the energy shield was active, it could negate any attack by consuming energy — a true absolute defense.
Of course, the energy shield had an upper power threshold; an instant output exceeding that threshold could breach the energy shield. But an attack that broke through was still weakened by the shield. Moreover, the shield didn't vanish once broken. Unlike a traditional physical shield, even if it was breached, the next attack striking that same breached spot still had to pass through the shield's weakening effect first.
The war machine was then constructed entirely from secondary kryptonite, and for melee weapons, cost-effective high-frequency blades were chosen.
For the surface coating, Zod chose gray.
Because in his eyes, this type of war machine was just cannon fodder, barely taking its first steps. So the gray coating was fitting.
Even though, if deployed on Earth, it could defeat about ninety percent of superheroes and supervillains.
After the cannon-fodder armor was done, Zod simply abandoned biotechnology.
The main reason was simple. The Kree Empire was currently acknowledged as having the most advanced bio-genetic engineering technology in the Marvel universe. For example, the famed Captain Marvel and Ronan.
But even the Kree Empire could only field a handful of super soldiers. Zod was very interested in their bio-genetic engineering, but this was no longer something money could buy.
The Kree weren't stupid; how could they sell their own technology and knowledge for money? The knowledge and technology Zod had bought were, for the most part, obsolete or on the verge of being phased out. Although there might indeed be idiots who really did put their core technologies up for sale, there surely wouldn't be many such idiots.
Nevertheless, the law of the jungle still prevailed in the universe. Zod saw that Kree scientists were being sold.
The universe had no shortage of desperate outlaws; as long as the price was right, a Kree scientist was just another commodity.
The Kree Empire was one of the universally recognized three great empires. While feared by many civilizations, countless greedy eyes were also fixed on them, all thinking of tearing off a piece of flesh to fill their bellies.
Interstellar civilizations coveting Kree technology were beyond count. The Kree knew this perfectly well, but there wasn't much they could do.
On one hand, the universe was vast and boundless; their military forces couldn't intimidate everyone. They could only win over some and suppress others.
On the other hand, the Kree Empire's number-one enemy was the Skrull Empire. With the two empires at war, they had no time for other matters. Knowing that some were secretly up to no good, they could only note it down for later.
And the place for these transactions was Knowhere — a place both very familiar and strangely foreign to Zod.
Familiar because he had seen it in comics and movies, foreign because he had never been there.
Knowhere, the territory of the Collector Tivan, was built from the skull of an ancient being, creating a lawless haven.
On Knowhere, many Kree were sold, or sought employment there, openly selling themselves with clearly marked prices.
Unlike the black market, the transactions here were all out in the open. Presumably, the Kree Empire tacitly permitted it.
The slaves there included some from the Skrull Empire — they would capture Kree scientists, squeeze out their residual value, and then sell them in exchange for strategic resources. There were also victims of internal Kree power struggles, and Kree scientists fleeing disaster. On one hand, they fled to escape the war; on the other, not all Kree were willing to submit to the Supreme Intelligence.
"If I robbed Knowhere, would Tivan drop his act and beat me up?"
Zod pondered meaningfully. Tivan was not the weakling who got one-shotted by Thanos in the movie. Taneleer Tivan was one of the Elders of the Universe, outwardly appearing as an ancient human. He was, in fact, a powerfully gifted alien humanoid, possessing immortality, time-space traversal, and precognition.
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